Aya Japanese Restaurant

I was lazy to prepare dinner after work on Wednesday and CL was craving for Japanese food. Therefore we decided to head out for dinner instead but we had no idea where to go. We tried our luck at Shira Nui but were too hungry to wait till 8pm when the table ready. Flipped thru The Entertainment Book we had and decided to try Aya Japanese Restaurant.

Before I start on food, a little introduction on the book, it provides discount on restaurants, hotels, car rental, lesiure, travel, attractions, sport etc. For restaurants, it covers fine and contemporary dining, casual and family dining, informal dining and also takeaway. It cost me $65 but I have definitly earn back what I paid. CL even said we must get it again next year since we love eating so much.

Back to the food. We started with Entrees

Tempura
CL felt it's a bit oily...don't think the chef actually try to dip as much oil as possible before serving. Towards the end, the paper is soak with oil. This dish actually comes with squid tempura. Think it might me my 1st time finding squid in a tempura dish.

Next we had a main size of Sushi & Sashimi Platter

The serving dish is huge! but it's full of sushi & sashimi. The sushi roll was rolled very tightly which we like. CL was wondering did they pre-prepare the roll and take them out from the fridge as he didn't see the chef making the roll. The rice didn't taste fridge cold except for the ingredient so I guess not. There are a few different varity of sashimi served and the sushi only comes in one while most places serve in 2. Therefore me and CL had a bit of difficulty which 1 to have. Can't expect us to have half each.

Lastly we had Grilled Scotch Fillet (sorry no picture as the camera ran out of battery). CL discover that all their set menus comes with 1 beef steak dish therefore deciding to try. Turn out the sauce is too salty. Lucky we are able to use the mash potatoes to blend the taste.

We end the dinner with dessert at home. Because there isn't anything interesting to try + we still have my homemade green tea ice cream in the freezer.

Think we might go back for sushi and sashimi as it's value for money.

Op Shop

One thing I have learn while living in Melbourne is shopping at op shop. It's easy on my wallet...actually CL's wallet...hehe. Also it's kinda fun and exciting because you never know you will have in your bag when you walk out of the shop.

This morning I went op shop shopping near my place. Although I have stay here for more than 2 year, I didn't know the shop exist till few months back when CL happen to drive past.

I love the shop. Space is big, well organise. Although it doesn't seem to carry a lot of branded stuff unlike the op shop in St Kilda. But the place is neat.

I spend 2 hours going thru every section on display and walk out $26.75 poorer.


Book $2.00 each
Saucer $1.00 each
Bowl $1.50 each
Crochet and Knitting Needle $0.50
Leather Wallet $1.50
Levis Jean $15.75

CATS VS HAWKS

The game just ended. HAWKS won AFL 2008 Grand Final. It's all Victoria team for this year Grand Final and it's the talking point for the past 1 week. I though CATS has a higher chance of retaining the title again but I was proven wrong by the HAWKS.

Last year, I had my annual Grand Final BBQ but got to give it a miss this time as CL is working. :(

Another AFL season ended and we still have not watch a single game live!!!

Pizza for Dinner

I better post the photos before I knock out for the day or before I start accumulating too much photos. As if I don't have enough back dated entries that I need to blog.

Tonight dinner menu was PIZZA.

The dough turn out pretty good although it didn't rise till twice it's size. Hmmm maybe because the yeast had expired for 2 weeks?

Got most of the ingredients from fortnightly marketing at Victoria Market yesterday morning. I cooked the tomatoes sauce yesterday just I was free.

Salmon and Mushroom Pizza
This is suppose to be Chicken instead of Salmon but I had forgotten to defrost any chicken. CL suggested to use canned salmon/tuna which we had in the pantry. It turn out really delicious. I should have leave it in the oven longer for a harder crust. Both of us prefer it hard than soft.

Ham & Pineapple Pizza
I left this in the oven for more than 30mins. The crust was hard and crunchy. CL finished 3/4 of this alone! I used fresh pineapple instead of canned. Fresh pineapple just taste different.

I better go now...getting late. I still wants to read a bit before I sleep.

How To Be A Domestic Goddness

Finally!!!!! I got myself the book I wanted "How To Be A Domestic Goddness" by Nigella Lawson. I heard a lot of good reviews on this book and wanted to get my hands on it. Especially I had started baking a lot more. When I received Borders 30% discount vouchers thru email on Friday morning, I know I definitly need to make a trip down during the weekend and get myself the book. It only cost $38.50!!! and I'm a happy girl who is going to spend my evening flipping thru and target what to bake next. hehe

Mi Jian Kueh

The title "Mi Jian Kueh" say it all. Came upon a very simple Mi Jian Kueh recipe + I have all the ingredients + I'm getting hungry + huge craving. So decided to mix all ingredients together and I tried making them yesterday afternoon. I had craving for them so some time and I haven't had any luck finding them in Melbourne. It's one of my favourite snack!!!



I won't rate the Mi Jian Kueh nice but it still pass my expectation....guess my expectation was pretty low as I the last time I had it was a year ago.....CL much worst than me, 3 years for him! Should have grounded the peanuts more finely. But I will definitly try other recipes again till I find something I like.

This recipe didn't call for yeast and no waiting time required. I sucks in any food that need yeast. Don't ask me why. Dinner menu for tonight is Pizza and I had made the dough but I don't think it's really rising much. Another yeast failure??? I seriously should consider attending a bread making course before attempting again.

Testing my LIMIT

"How are you this morning? Feeling better today?"

"NO" was my answer when boss asked me this morning.

Once again, the project pissed me off. The client pissed me off! I showed my temper to my project mates and boss again. Honestly, if it happened few 3 years ago at LaLa land, I had already shouted at the client and prepared to walk off the job. That's ME. Those who worked with me in LaLa land should know how bad temper I used to be. I had toned down a lot since I step into down under.

Every Tuesday morning, the stupid idiot comes into my office, have a meeting and start telling us stupid stuff. Treating us like a 3 years old kid without any brain. Spoil the day for the whole team and we spend most of the day picking things up. It's a total waste of time.

Yesterday was even worst. I spotted a point which conflicts with what he said. Wrote him an email and he called. Telling me he is constantly changing the documents and he is not going to inform me what is being change! GREAT! I'm here trying to program and make sure there isn't any error on the documents at the same time and he only the other hand keep changing the documents which I'm working on. Doesn't that mean every week after he visited us, handed all the documents he had done, I have to print everything out and make sure the program is written as same as the document? As there isn't any track changes on, I have to look thru every single line? That is bloody waste of time! Voice it out to him that's not the correct way and he replied that we can check it thru during FAT. Sorted of told him off, FAT is to test the system when everything is done and not to check and change program.

I'm trying to be racist here. BUT who the hell doesn't review the document because the Visio graphic in the document can't be edited??? We submitted the hardware design documents for review few weeks ago; his feedback was he couldn't edit the diagram. We seriously doubt there's any changes required on the diagram at all! But we still spend the time and effort trying ways and means to convert the diagram but instead got informed he didn't review the whole document at all, not even a single word! Reason because he couldn't edit the diagram so he decided to bump the document aside and came up with a FANTASTIC SOLUTION! He is going to REDO the whole document! Type every single word out and draw from scratch for every single diagram when there is in fact a full document available which we have no problem editing except him! Who does that???? I can only say the Indian.

A lot of factor contributed to this stage for this project. I'm seriously reaching my limit and had discussed with CL which I slipped of mouth leaked to my colleague (Maybe it's not a bad idea).

A lot of thinking needs to be done on my side. If I leave because of the project and the stupid client, I can't guarantee that I will not meet such person at all since I'm a SI. SI deals with clients all the time. If that's the main reason, it defeats the purpose. I lose because it's just a way to escape.

Transition Period

I admit, I have being LAZY! Not blogging, not going to gym. Daily routine for the past 2 weeks is purely crawling out of bed half awake up in the morning, going to work, knocking off on time, prepare dinner, wash dishes, squeeze in laundry on some evenings, watch Japanese series while crocheting, read a bit before i go off to bed early. I just don't feel like doing anything else unless I really have too! Had some really bad days at work that makes me ponder. *SIGH* Really sick of the project I'm doing now (being dragging for too long! 2 years by the time I finish commission it)and more sick of the client that treat me like an idiot.

Did some shopping on the weekend 2 weeks ago. I went into wonderland when I step into CakeDeco!!! I just can't stop looking around. There are so many different decorating instruments, different shapes and sizes cookies cutter, baking cups which I had to restrain myself from buying any because they are all so CUTE! It's a baker paradise!!!! I bought some small pie dish which I can used when I make chicken pies, 2 cookies cutter (X'mas theme) which I plan to bake some cookies to give away before X'mas....hmm wonder how I'm going to juggle when I have to work finishing the stupid project thru the whole holiday period....seriously hope I will be well organise. (self-reminder: got to start trial and error in baking ginger bread man and decorating it).

I didn't really cook anything fancy or try out new recipes recently. But I did bake some White Chocolate and Macadamia Nuts Cookies yesterday. It was really crunchy and I love it! Mixed more what the recipe state on the nuts.

I also tried my hand on Green Tea Ice Cream which is CL current crave. As I didn't have a ice cream maker, I make it manually. Having to keep opening up my freezer every 45mins to stir the ice cream. I have to admit it's a bit troublesome and it got really hard to stir towards the end because it start to harden quite a bit. "Should I get myself a ice cream maker??" was the question I had in my brain for almost a week. I didn't know if there's going to be a different in taste and texture if I make it using a ice cream maker. I know it will save me time and energy. Took a bit of courage to email a local food female blogger for advice and she answered my question for me (I find her really cute...hehe)! I got to start pestering CL to buy 1 for me....hehehe. Hopefully more different favour of ice cream coming your way during summer.

Opps....sorry no pictures on the cookies and ice cream. Didn't manage to take any pictures this time. Told you I'm a slacker.

Preparation for Retirement

On the way back from Warrnambool, CL stopped at Lincraft and I bought myself Learn to Crochet pattern book. In fact, I own Learn to Knit book and find it very useful. Contains projects that are simple enough for me to work on.

On my 1st crochet project, I chosen a very simple pattern scarf. It's really easy to make, require only 2 balls of yarn and minimum time to work on. I'm happy with the result. I even got a colleague into crochet now.



I know, it's so not ME!! Cooking, baking, knitting and now crochet. I'm just preparing for retirement :). At the age of 70s, it's going to be super difficult to learn how to knit or crochet. AGREE???